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Roenicke fine with home-plate collision rule

By
Jose M. RomeroSpecial to MLB.com

PHOENIX -- Brewers manager Ron Roenicke met with league officials on Monday to go over the use of instant replay in Major League Baseball this season, and in the process also got clarification of the home-plate collision rule, which will also take effect.

Roenicke said he feels good about the instant replay process now that he knows what it is and how it will work. Managers get one call challenge in the first six innings, then any replay decisions in the seventh, eighth and ninth are at the discretion of the umpiring crew.

PHOENIX -- Brewers manager Ron Roenicke met with league officials on Monday to go over the use of instant replay in Major League Baseball this season, and in the process also got clarification of the home-plate collision rule, which will also take effect.

Roenicke said he feels good about the instant replay process now that he knows what it is and how it will work. Managers get one call challenge in the first six innings, then any replay decisions in the seventh, eighth and ninth are at the discretion of the umpiring crew.

"The umpires, they're on the same kind of feeling that we [managers] are. They want to get the plays right," Roenicke said.

As for the home-plate rule, Roenicke said it's not much different from what the Brewers' catchers have been working on in Spring Training.

"You've got to give the baserunner a lane to slide in, which we've always told our catchers anyway," he said. "Give them a lane to slide in, put your foot on the corner of the plate and catch the ball deep so you can make a tag. If they do it that way, there's not going to be any change."

Roenicke added that the Brewers will teach baserunners to slide so as to avoid deliberately ramming into catchers at the plate to jar the ball loose, which is now a rules violation.